SEGA: The Conduit Successful in its First Week
Sega are happy with the decent reviews and the strong sales that The Conduit generated during its first week on sale in the U.S. Sega has already tried to crack the mature market on the Wii with The House of the Dead: Overkill and MadWorld. SEGA's vice president of marketing, Sean Ratcliffe, believes that The Conduit is set to do a lot better sales wise because it offers something both of those titles didn't, multiplayer.
"The mature audience on the Wii is a relatively new audience. The system has traditionally targeted families and kids and not the more mature hardcore gamer. We recognize that when you are trying something new, it may take awhile for the consumer to jump on board with it," Ratcliffe told IGN.
"The game is already successful with us as the reviews have been pretty impressive. Overall the reviews have been strong, and though there will always be some naysayers we definitely feel we have been able to offer gamers the Wii experience we were looking for."
"Though it is still early days in the retail life of the game, we are seeing very strong week one sales and being the best shooter on the Wii means that we think we will see this game out there and selling well for a long time."
Ratcliffe believes that The Conduit is poised to sell better than other mature titles from Sega because of its multiplayer features. He also believes it gives gamers something they are already familiar with, rather than an innovative concept that they may be wary of. "Unlike MadWorld and House of the Dead, The Conduit offers multiplayer, which really will be the key to differentiating this game from others out there. The most successful Wii games offer some element of multiplayer? element to them and this game takes that to a whole new level. Offering incredible online gameplay takes this game out of the TV room and makes it a global experience that we think the Wii gamer has been looking for," says Ratcliffe.
The Conduit will be released in Australia this Thursday, July 16. We'll have our review up around the same time.
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